Volume of "smacking", "minor acts of physical discipline" and other assault events

• The first three months following enactment of the Amendment have identified a small increase in Police activity in attending and/or investigating child assaults matching the original search criteria.⁵
• Police attended a total of 111 child assault events (matching the original search criteria),⁶ 15 of which involved "smacking" and "minor acts of physical discipline".
• This represents a minor increase in the figures for the previous three month period prior to th

Background

• On 22 June 2007, the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act (the Amendment) came into force, amending section 59 of the Crimes Act 1961.

Parent Call Centre

A recommendation from the Review of New Zealand Police and Child, Youth and Family Policies and Procedures relating to the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act was the development of child safety pamphlets, to be distributed when police attend an incident involving child safety. The pamphlet provides a number for a parent call centre which is able to answer any questions around a police visit or about child safety and services available.

Methodology

The number of child assault events identified in each review period does not reflect the total number of child assault events attended by police during this time. The events are those most likely to identify incidents which might involve 'smacking', as 'smacking' in itself is not a separate offence.

Nine different offence codes were examined to identify such incidents.

The rationale used to allocate each event to a category of 'smacking', 'minor act of physical discipline', 'other child assault' involved consideration of the:

Background

This report details results from the 7th review of relevant Police activity since enactment of the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007. This review covers the period 23 December 2009 to 22 June 2010.

Monitoring initially took place for a two year period since enactment on 22nd June, 2007.